


The Resurrection of Everything

by ObeyDontStray



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Conspiracy, F/M, Family, Multi, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:20:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObeyDontStray/pseuds/ObeyDontStray
Summary: It started out as a whisper, and grew into a yell. There's no way this is real.
Relationships: Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Murray Bauman & Joyce Byers, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

Joyce Byers had never, ever, given any thought to kissing Murray Bauman. But at that exact moment he had given her such unbelievable hope and joy, she considered throwing her arms around him and planting a big one on him. 

“Joyce, are you listening to me?” He asked, staring at her with that unamused flat look he always had. “I said it’s a possibility. A very thin one. But nothing is ever impossible.” 

Part of her wanted to do cartwheels, to scream out at the world. But Murray’s skeptical words had brought her back to reality. She realized that she was so desperate to disprove that it didn’t happen, that she was looking for any shred to grip onto. This was Murray. His mind was filled to the brim with all sorts of conspiracy theories. 

Jim was dead. She had flipped the switches on him herself. 

How wonderful would it be for him to come home? To come back to his grieving daughter, and Joyce’s youngest son that admired him so much. 

She replayed that last look between them. That look that told her to do what they both had to do. He knew what was coming, and there was no other option. 

…

Jim rolled over in bed and wrapped his heavy arm around her middle. "Stop wiggling." He grumbled sleepily. He was soft and warm, and solid against her back. He was all around her, his much bigger body wrapper around her small frame like a hibernating bear. She rolled over for the fifth time or so to look at his face in the early morning light. That beautiful, angular face with the heavy brow hiding where those bright blues eyes would shine whenever he was alert. She moved her hand to cup his cheek and stroke the stubble that always lingered on his cheek, even though he just shaved again. He turned his face in her palm and lay a kiss there. 

"Why you keep staring at me?" He grumbled. 

"Because I know you're dead."

Joyce awoke with a start, pulled out of the dream by the sound of the phone ringing. She stared at her alarm clock with blurry eyes. Who the hell would be calling her at three in the morning?

She barely got the phone to her ear before he flew into all sorts of theories and explanations.

“Murray. Murray! MURRAY!” She insisted with rising tones. “Murray you have to give up on this. Jim’s dead. There’s no way he could have escaped that blast. I saw the explosion myself.” 

“I have a source that says there are whispers of an American having been seen in Russia…”

“I'm sure there's plenty of Americans in Russia. Murray, Russia? How would he even end up there?”

“How did Russians end up in our mall? Anything is possible at this point, Joyce!”

"Everyone on that platform vaporized Murray, there wasn't even anything of him to bury." she said, the ending of the sentence choking her up as she slammed the phone down. 

….

Murray stood by Joyce’s side of the car. “I’m telling you, you should stay and see this thing through. Just a few more months. I’m so close to figuring this thing out. What if he’s-” Joyce shushed him with an annoyed look on her face, motioning towards El and Will who occupied the car too. Jonathan was away at college with Nancy. When Jim passed, a new Chief came into town and Steve felt moved enough to join the force himself. 

“Murray, please. I have to move on, we all have to move on. And we can’t do that unless we get a fresh start somewhere else.”

Murray glanced in the backseat at the two sulking teenagers. “So you take her away from everyone she knows, even after losing her Dad?” 

That comment struck her in the heart and Joyce’s face grew stony. “Goodbye, Murray.” She said in an angry voice before driving away.

…..

Three months later, Joyce was ignoring the phone. Every time she picked up it was Murray. She didn’t give him a chance to get in a word edgewise before she told him goodbye and hung up. He had been trying to call her all day.

With the kids at school, Joyce was alone on her off day in the house that still didn’t feel like home. It was even colder feeling than she thought their home in Hawkins had been. 

“Mom, we’re home.” Will called out with the screen door making a whap whap sound as it bounced to a rest behind the bodies of her two children. “How was your day, you guys?” 

El was still sulking. She was still not only mourning Hopper, but all of Hawkins. Murray was right, it hadn’t been fair of Joyce to pluck the girl out of everything she’d ever known. 

Now El carried a permanent scowl when it came to Joyce. 

“Everything was okay.” Will said quietly. He would never admit it to his Mom, but Joyce knew that the kids in this new school were extra harsh on him and that he suffered with the bullying. 

If she hadn’t sunk all of their money into this house and driving up here, she’d try to go home. But their old home had been sold, and there was nowhere for them to go. Maybe Hop’s cabin, but she couldn’t bear to move there. 

Moving them was one of the biggest mistakes she had ever made, in a string of bad mistakes. 

The phone rang and before Joyce could make her way to it, El had picked up. “Hello?” Joyce made a move to take the phone away from her. 

Suddenly El burst into tears, holding the phone as she looked to Joyce. “We have to go to Indiana, right now.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's real, and he's really here. A sliver of what he was, a ghost of a former man. But he's solid and warm and here.

Joyce stood at the window outside the room pensively, watching El and Will interact with Jim. 

He was way too thin. She could see it in his face, even at this distance. His sharp features were even more angular now, and there was no roundness of a belly under his blanket. He was still Jim, but not the Jim that she had seen before…. the same Jim she had promised a date to Enzo's. 

El held his hand and cried silently as he said words to her that Joyce couldn't quite make out, except for the fact that his voice was dry and croaky sounding. Will sat at El's side, rubbing her back in smooth circles. 

Joyce's heart ached for her to go in there but she was afraid of consuming the situation. Afraid to show that emotion around the children. The raw grief and emotion that was sure to pour out of her as soon as he spoke to her. 

He turned his gaze to the window where she knew he saw her and it pulled her from her thoughts. He said something to the kids before turning back to look at the window. 

Will walked out to her. "Hopper says to give us money for lunch. I think he wants some time with you." Will said before he looked in the room. "He's worried about El getting weak."

Joyce nodded and gave Will the last of the money in her wallet. "You guys have whatever you want. Stay in the cafeteria for about an hour okay? Then bring me a Coke when you come back up please." Will nodded quietly and hugged his Mom. "He's okay Mom. He's home."

Joyce hugged El tightly when she walked out of the room and took her face in both hands, kissing her forehead and wiping away her tears. "He's home baby. He's alive." 

She had to choke back a sob at the sight of El's fresh tears. "He's home with us now."

When the two teens began walking down the hall Hopper turned his head towards the window, looking at her. She steeled herself as best as she could and took the step inside the door.

"Joycie…" He breathed and she ran to him, quickly covering her upper body with her own, hugging him as tightly as she could. "Easy Joycie easy…" He wheezed. "I'm broken up."

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" She said, backing up and staring at his face, crying. He reached out and took her hand and squeezed it. "Hey kid, how about you break me outta this joint?" He grinned and she shook her head, a tiny smile breaking through the grief as she began exploring his face with her hands to make sure he was really real. Really there. He reached up and took one of them and kissed the inside of her palm. 

"You're pale as a ghost." She said, a sob breaking through again. He was way too thin. She could see it in the angles of his jaw, and bruises peeked above the collar of his gown, growing purple and yellow around one collarbone. His eyes were dark, the mischevious sparkle he usually carried replaced with stormy, darkened blues.

"I kinda am, aren't I?" He said as he squeezed her hand. "So, this Friday at 7? Enzo's? I'll pick you up." 

"You're an idiot, Jim Hopper." She smiled as she leaned forward to kiss him, years sliding down her cheeks. 

His lips were chapped and cracked, but she could care less. He was here, and she was kissing his lips then all over his face as he squeezed her hands. 

"If I knew I'd get this kind of reception, I would have come home sooner."

"Hop!" She fussed.


End file.
